Steve Barth | Reflexions

Save America from a Dangerous Invasion: Deport Lou Dobbs

"I had a sacred trust there, and I let it go.” — Ted Turner, founder of CNN

Media critic Tim Rutten has a great piece in today’s Los Angeles Times: “Bile across the border”

“It’s been a while since a major American news organization treated an important national issue as irresponsibly as CNN now does immigration,” Rutten writes.

Every night when the sun goes down, Lou Dobbs’ apoplectic rants against free trade, foreign investment, outsourcing, immigration and public displays of ethnicity are an embarrassment to journalism and a dangerous distraction from the real issues that need to be addressed.

Your Tax Dollars at Work (cont'd)

An Afghani man is potentially facing execution in Kabul if convicted of converting to Christianity. Abdul Rahman, 41, converted 16 years ago while working with an aid organization helping refugees in Pakistan. Based on accusations made by family members, with whom he is in a custody dispute over his two children, he was arrested last month. With a bible in his posession, he was charged with rejecting Islam. Four years after the Taleban were replaced by the US-backed government--with a constitution is based on Sharia law--the defendant faces a death sentence. President Hamid Karzai has said he will not intervene. The judge has offered to forgive Rahman if he recants his conversion "because the religion of Islam is one of tolerance." Via Associated Press and BBC Online (

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4823874.stm)

Calculating the Real Cost of Gas

“Socialism collapsed because it did not allow the market to tell the economic truth. Capitalism may collapse because it does not allow the market to tell the ecological truth.”

--Øystein Dahle, former VP, Exxon

Øystein is quoted in Lester Brown's new book, Plan B 2.0: Rescuing a Planet Under Stress and a Civilization in Trouble (W.W. Norton & Co., 2006). The book is available online in pdf chapters at www.earth-policy.org.

David Barth’s “Hard Right” Reviewed in Variety

David Barth’s off-Broadway production of “Hard Right” is reviewed by Mark Blankenship in Tomorrow’s Daily Variety.

Here's proof that "Hard Right," a vicious political drama from David Barth, scrapes some kind of nerve: At the performance reviewed, patrons started yelling at each other across the aisles during the play. "How can you laugh at this? It's not funny!" said one man, reacting to the crowd's titters as a mysterious government agent terrorized a suburban family. But the laughs kept coming, especially when the agent offered absurd rationales for his behavior. "How can you laugh?" the man repeated, until someone retorted, "Don't tell me what to think!"

Blankenship compares the production to certain Pinter plays "in which terror springs from chatty rogues with unclear motives," he writes. "But though it traffics mainly in dread, the production's tone is expertly controlled."

"Hard Right" continues through the month at the Player's Theater.

Brazilians fear US plotting to take Amazon

Spotted this last week in the LA Times. Three-quarters of Brazilians expect a foreign invasion to seize the Amazon.

It's laughable at first. But after that, it's a chilling lesson in how perception is more important than reality. And how badly perceptions of US intentions have gone downhill.

"Catapult the Propaganda"

"See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda. (Applause.)"
"President Participates in Social Security Conversation in New York"
Greece Athena Middle and High School, May 24, 2005
Text via www.whitehouse.gov

Where is MacGyver when we need him?

Making the World Safe for Hypocrisy Dept:

Okay, I haven't been posting lately. I was traveling and busy and lazy and apathetic. But then you wake up one day and something happens that reminds you why the world, well, spins.

Recently retired Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge has joined the board of Home Depot Inc. I think this is great, because Tom is such a do-it-yourselfer.

Understanding asymmetric conflict

Colonel T.X. Hammes was interviewed on NPR today. Tom has recently published his book on asymmetrical conflict, "The Sling and the Stone: On War in the 21st Century." (Motorbooks, 2004) Because of the war in Iraq, his work is primarily being seen in its military terms. However, these ideas are powerfully applicable beyond the battlefield.

A few years ago, when I was doing an article on how the military is changing its thinking about thinking, Hammes really helped me understand the promise of organizational intelligence.

“Bringing all the decisions to one place consolidates uncertainty and increases the time it takes to make a decision,” he told me. “I can’t wait for decisions from the top to percolate all the way down. I need parallel decisions at multiple levels that are bound together by the common view provided by the commander and by a lot of training and working together.”

How wide is the cultural divide?

Is the American electorate really as polarized as it would seem? Or has the media simply aggravated a cynical political process? This article discusses the new book by Morris P. Fiorina, Culture War? The Myth of a Polarized America.

Berlusconitis

A friend, in town from overseas, was knocking on my door at 6.30am. I'd finally gone to bed after 3.00 because watching the election returns had made me physically ill and left a hangover of depression. The idea of taking him sightseeing sounded better than watching to TV post-mortems, so l agreed on the condition that he buy me coffee first. While I ate a bran muffin he told me a story...

Benjamin Barber on KPFA

Flying down Highway 5 this morning, I caught a fascinating interview with Benjamin Barber on KPFA Berkeley's Morning Show.

Listen to the broadcast. Barber interview is about 33 minutes into the MP3 file.

Games People Play... with Armageddon

My old friend Steve Clemons makes some great points about the games people play with other people's lives and other people's countries in this perspective published yesterday by UPI, "Wizards of Armageddon."

"Nearly all of America's assumptions about Saddam Hussein's weapons capabilities were wrong," he notes. "Saddam was nearly powerless in his region but did not want to let his chief rivals, particularly Iran, know how effectively he had been de-clawed after the 1991 Gulf War."

Clemons points out that Bush Administration strategists are well-versed in Cold War strategy and the game theory behind it. As such, they have no excuse for failing to recognize that "evidence" of WMD in Iraq was a bluff for regional consumption--not for provoking the US.

If an Empire Falls, this is the Sound

If an empire falls in the forest, there are obviously a lot of people around. But very few people will actually recognize the sound.

Novelist William Gibson heard it in a quote from the Bush Administration as reported by Ron Suskind for the New York Times Magazine in an article called "Without a Doubt"

Has Kerry Been amBushed?

Many polls suggest the swift boat ads attempting to discredit Kerry's military record are actually backfiring against Bush among some voters. But Bush isn't doing damage control--he's leaning on Kerry. Why risk more backlash? Here's a thought...

Wishing Away the Plague

It happens all the time--attempting to make a problem go away by pretending it doesn't exist. People do it all the time. So do political institutions. In Sunday's LA Times Opinion section, Wendy Orent, offered a chilling example.

Frightening Patterns

I'm fascinated by stories of the recent “dry run” scare on Northwest flight 327, when passengers became convinced they were about to be overrun by terrorists.

The Empire in the Mirror

Today's New York Times Sunday Book Review presents "Books on Empire". Besides reviews and essays, there are first chapters of works by Hugh Thomas, Niall Ferguson, Michael Ignatieff and others.

Digital Kibble

In Let Them Eat Web Pages, MIT Technology Review blogger Wade Roush picks up on another inscrutable attempt to help the homeless help themselves...with a new website.

Open Hearts and Open Minds

These remarks were originally prepared just after the attacks on the WTC for a talk at the Wat Thai Buddhist temple in Los Angeles...

I've been asked to speak today about what's going to happen next. As a journalist, I interview many soldiers, politicians and economists about the causes and consequences of the "New World Order." But today I can only speak for myself. And I would like to make an offering here in the name of peace.

America has declared war. Supposedly, it's a new kind of war, even if the words sound very familiar. It could be a very dangerous war. For every terrorist we capture, will we create ten more? For every innocent civilian in the Middle East who gets in the way, will thousands convert from ambivalence to antagonism and be sympathetic or even supportive of future terrorism?

War brings out the best in people. Unfortunately, it also brings out the worst. Politicians and generals say that victory depends on winning the hearts and minds of citizens. They need citizens to narrow their focus and control their emotions so that anger is channeled and doubts are disregarded. That way, we demonize the enemy and trivialize the violence we commit in the name of justice. That way we don't ask questions, like "Why?"

So when we talk about winning wars by winning hearts and minds, we mean closed hearts and closed minds.